Doug not so Funny
by amber leaf blonde
Summary: Following Skeeter's suicide Doug has taken a very different outlook on his world and the people in it. He must venture through a series of events that will test his moral compass.
1. Chapter 1

The end of my joint burnt bright red where it met the paper and then devoured it into ash. I watched this transformation as I lay on my bed blowing smoke towards the ceiling. This time last year I had been in a state of utter shock, inconsolable, but nowadays I was simply numb. Numb to everything. As my thoughts became less linear and more abstract I shifted my focus from the ceiling to the world outside my window. The view hadn't changed, in fact you could have taken a photograph of the little street outside this time last year and it would be pretty much indistinguishable, it hadn't changed at all, but it wasn't the same. Nothing was ever the same since Skeeter killed himself.

Killed himself, that was how I phrased it these days. When it first happened I used to say " passed away" or " isn't around anymore" then about a month later I'd say " died" and then after that I got mad. I'd say " took the easy way out" or " threw his life away". Then when I got tired of being mad I tried to be casual about it to provoke people saying things like that he " kicked the bucket " or that he had " croaked " . For the most part that worked , it did provoke people around here and it did upset them, in fact Beebe Bluff still refused to acknowledge my existence after hearing me speak this way at a party. Needless to say I didn't get invited to parties with my old friends often these days, but nor did I have any interest in being around them either.

Hanging out with them really began to get on my nerves to the point where as mentioned before, I would engage in behavior designed to provoke them. In weeks immediately following skeeter killing himself it felt like we were all in this together, blah blah blah, most of the girls cried publicly and some of the guys too. I never did. I was so shocked that I never talked about it with anyone, barely even my parents. Everyone kept asking me and kept wanting to know if I was OK , and when I say everyone I mean EVERYONE, people I barely even knew would try to hug me and shit and ask how I was doing, I became " that kid who was friends with that kid who killed himself". I just told them that I was fine and that I didn't want to talk about it.

I really don't know which I preferred, or to be more accurate, which was worse. How things were just after he had killed himself or what came after that. When it first happened we would all hangout every night in someone's house and people would talk about it. Without fail whoever's parent's were present would edge their way into the conversation and it would all end in the usual " if you're depressed its OK to talk to somebody , you know we love you kids!" Speech. I came along to these gatherings because I figured that it was better than being alone with my thoughts and at first I accepted that this was the particular way in which my friends had chosen to deal with their grief. It was only after a while that I began to noticed things about the situation that pissed me off.

I observed that when any of former associates would talk about skeeter they would briefly mention how much they missed him before swiftly moving on to how the situation affected them. Everything just seemed to be about them when you got to the bottom of it, how depressed they were, how bad they felt, how guilty they felt about not doing anything even though skeeter showed no signs of wanting to kill himself ect. Even worse was any mention of Skeeter's family, they would go on and on about how bad they felt for them, his mother , his father, how hard it must be for them... It all had this undercurrent of skeeter being an asshole for doing what he did. That he had just done it to piss off his parents.

It made me sick, that they would even attempt to make it all about themselves. What came after that however was just as bad. About a month after everything had gone down they all just simply stopped talking about it. It wasn't just like it never happened, it was like skeeter had never even existed. They all just moved on to talking about the same old trivial shit they always did, bitching about the same stupid meaningless " problems" that they had. This was when I began to speak about it. Not out of any particular desire to do so but to make them uncomfortable and watch them worm their way out of the topic of conversation. Doing that and watching them squirm was the most fun I had with them after Skeeter's death.

There were a few of them that I felt that I could carry a conversation with if we happened to cross paths, but by and large them and I didn't see a whole lot of each other. I had different interests nowadays, different priorities. I also didn't feel like I truly respected any of them so what was the point in hanging out with them in Honker burger waiting for something to happen? I could feel my eyes becoming heavier in my sockets. I had been thinking all of these thoughts intently while staring out the window. What felt like an hour of deep reflection was in reality only Five minutes. This was interrupted by my phone going off and half scaring the shit out of me. As I picked up the phone I could hear a car rolling on the gravel outside pulling up outside my house. It was Roger.


	2. Chapter 2

I didn't bother answering the phone as Roger was just calling to tell me that he was outside. I avoided bringing Roger into the house as much as I could because say what you will about my parents being about the most vanilla people in Bluffington, they weren't stupid. They were aware that Roger was just about the most fucked up kid in town and any attempts at small talk with him always displayed this fact. They hated me hanging out with him and to be fair I could understand why but they never forbade me from being in his company. They were aware that I had drifted away from my old friends and were just glad that I was getting out of the house instead of sitting in my room all day. They definitely much preferred my old friends and asked me how they were doing or that they had seen them around the place and that they asked about me. I doubt they did, but I don't doubt that they were polite enough to my parents.

I made brief small talk with my parents before leaving, I was conscious and paranoid of the fact that I was stoned and got outside and into Roger's piece of shit car as quickly as I could.

" Hey Funnie." He said relaxed pulling on his cigarette, it was genuine greeting from him nowadays, not how he used to say it.

" What's up man?" I asked putting on my seatbelt.

" Not much! Not much! We gotta go make some money!" He said darting his head around the car looking in every direction as he pulled off the sidewalk and drove onwards. Just like everything else Roger had changed since Skeeter's death. He hadn't even been around when it happened, he had been staying with his white trash uncle in Florida for a few months because his mom was sick of him. That experience had altered him significantly, he was no longer the petty childish troublemaker he had been previously. He was now obsessed with money, calculated and an all round psychopath.

" Where to first?" I asked lighting up a cigarette for myself.

" Emmm, how about Liverdale ?"

" Sounds good." I replied wiping ash of my green sweater vest, it had accumulated a few hot rocks this year. Liverdale was a small and really shitty neighborhood a few blocks away from where Roger lived. Roger's mom had managed to secure a house in a slightly better neighborhood due to the mayor's fondness of her stripping and other services. He was a regular visitor at the Klotz home and even knew Roger on first name basis. We pulled up to a ratty looking gas station in beautiful Liverdale, there was old dirty dog munching away on a discarded burrito and the proprietor of the establishment sat outside his business on a deck chair in his stained wife beater. Like clockwork a gang of runts ran over to the car and began giving away their hard stolen dollars. The idea was simple and brilliant, these kids were too young to buy cigarettes so roger just stole some of his mom's and sold the pack off individually smoke by smoke. The money we got from this would cover a pack each for us and a little bit left over. The stained wife beater deckchair guy who owned the gas station didn't have any problem selling us tobacco, he was also familiar with Roger's promiscuous mother.

We finished up our business in Liverdale and it was now 6:30pm, it was time to go to the Honker burger parking lot for our weekly Meeting. When we got there Roger pulled open the glove compartment and produced a small bag of coke.

" Where the fuck is this bitch?" He asked to no one in particular as he pulled a quarter from his pocket and began fishing around in bag and scooping up a small amount of nose candy.

" She getting a bit Tardy Roger."

" Yeah, I mean you would think she would make it her business to be here on time, I mean we're on fucking time. This should be the other way around if anything! " he crouched down below the dash a snorted the white substance off the quarter.

" Yeah you're right I mean, I never blackmailed someone before, but I don't think we should have to like put pressure on her every so often, this should just be the arrangement, that she's here every week." Roger handed me the bag and the quarter and I obliged.

" Arrangement! Exactly that's exactly the word! This is an arrangement, it's a business transaction. When you have to pay a bill you fucking pay it. What happens when you don't pay a bill?"

I snorted and I said.

" Why don't you ask your mom Roger! Hahahaha."

" Fuck off Funnie!' He said punching me in the arm with a slight smile on his face. " Seriously, when you don't pay a bill or you're late with a payment you get penalized, there's interest! We should be penalizing this bitch for showing up late! We should be getting more Money out of her!" Ranted Roger, I was far less greedy than him. I really hadn't registered the seediness of blackmail at the time, that hadn't really sunk in yet, I was more complaining for the sake of it at her being late for something to say and Roger was now high and getting carried away. I didn't know what to say and I didn't want to appear weak so I simply just nodded and didn't say anything. Just then we seen her car pull around the corner of the drive thru.

Tippi Dink the former Mayor emerged from her car with an emotionless face and walked towards us. In one hand she had a small brown envelope and in the other she had a bag from the drive thru. Roger was screwing up his face, he seemed furious all of a sudden. She walked up to rogers window and roger began frantically rolling down his window ( as his car was shit and it had old school rollers).

" What fucking time do you call this!?" He rasped at her. She calmly just handed him the envelope.

" Calm down you little shit, I got held up."

" WHAT!? Fuck you! Your supposed to be here on time! We're waiting here half an hour for you! We have better fucking things to be doing!' In reality it was more like 8 minutes. Tippi rolled her eyes and began remove her burger from her take out bag.

" Like what? Doing your fucking homework? Or selling smokes to infants?"

She said taking a bite and staring back at Roger who was whiteknuckling the steering wheel.

" You better fucking watch yourself bitch! Were you busy licking someone out!? Is that why you're late?" Tippi just rolled her eyes and turned and started walking away.

" It's all there guys. Same time next week? Can't wait. " she remarked almost to herself. Roger clearly wasn't done with her and punched the dash.

" Cunt!"

Tippi Dink's reign as the mayor of Bluffington had gone well initially but much like her predecessor she was eventually corrupted by the allure of power drugs and yes, Women. After it became common knowledge that she had checked into rehab she lost the support of the common folk. Although they became aware of her being a former drug user, her true sexual orientation remained unknown to all but a select few. Namely Roger, Roger's mom and me when Roger cut me in on the blackmailing gig. She had maintained several mistresses dotted around town during her time in office. Everything was pretty hush though, she had a pretty good set up, but she fucked up. On a particularly epic binge she found herself soliciting the services of Roger's Mom. Roger's mom then cooked up the black mailing plot and implemented it through Roger. Roger liked to think that it all his idea, but in reality his Mom masterminded a lot of his schemes. I for one didn't really fall off my chair when I discovered Tippi was gay, it made sense if you really thought about it.

Roger ranted and raved about Tippi as we drove to Mr. Studebaker's place


End file.
